Charles Brown in Concert
Charles was born in Texas City, Texas, in 1922 and first came to notice as pianist and singer with Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers where his ‘Drifting Blues’ stayed on the…
Those Jumpin’ Blues
I was seventeen years old, as fed up with school as it was with me, impatiently awaiting my call-up to National Service in the RAF and increasingly curious about what…
The Blues According To Howard McCrary
I’m not the only music fan who developed a fascination for certain record labels. Not the majors, of course, they can look after themselves, but it’s a special feeling to…
Blues Girls With Attitude
One afternoon back in 1973, I took an unexpected telephone call. It was Victoria Spivey. Considering that we had only previously been in contact by letter, and that had mostly…
The Harmonica Boss
One of the very few good things to come about during this Covid nightmare is the opportunity it affords to dig into the archives. With our usual work of booking…
Standing On The Corner of 12th Street and Vine
Kansas City, Missouri stands at the crossroads where blues and jazz meet. From the wild and wide-open days of the mid 1920s, when Tom Pendergast steadfastly refused to let Prohibition…
Homesick Takes An Early Bath
Here’s a funiosity. On the surface this Press Release from some 46 years ago appears to be about a routine like-for-like replacement for a musician suddenly taken sick mid-tour. However,…
Detroit Black Bottom
Black Bottom was a predominantly black neighbourhood in Detroit, Michigan. A lot of folk wrongly believe that it got its name from the African-American community that developed there in the…
Eddie C.C. Rider
One Sunday morning, probably in 1984, there was a knock on my front door. I was surprised to find Chicago Blues hooligan Eddie C. Campbell, grinning as he always did,…
Beale Street Blues
From the early 1900s, musicians from the nearby state of Mississippi made their way to Memphis, Tennessee, attracted by the bright lights of Beale Street. Among the more prominent arrivals…